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Saturday, February 25, 2006

17 Minutes I'll Bet The President Wishes Never Happened

I had four titles to this post before I hit the one above: 1) What's the President been smoking? 2) "Freedom defeats an ideology of hatred," oh my! 3) Watch out, the President is having visions again. And finally, 4) WTF?!?

Which title you would have selected is beside the point. My bet is that this seventeen minute interview with a Pakistani news outlet are seventeen minutes he would like to have gotten back - or at least a do-over. Have a gander at how he bumbles all over himself.

Q Coming to another subject, what strategy the United States has adopted for conquering terrorism in Pakistan, in a very holistic manner?

THE PRESIDENT: First of all, freedom defeats an ideology of hatred. And the enemy -- I say "the enemy" because they'll kill -- they innocent Pakistanis, they kill innocent Americans. We need -- more Muslims have died at the hands of al Qaeda and these extremists than anybody else. These -- I don't view these people as religious people. I view them as people who have taken a great religion and kind of twisted it to meet their means.

And so they have a vision. And it's not a vision -- it's a vision that doesn't recognize the freedom of people to worship. It's a vision that doesn't understand the -- that recognize the importance of women in society, or free speech. And so the way to defeat that vision is with a better vision, more hopeful, and democracy provides that vision.

We are in close coordination, of course, with the government of Pakistan. We share a mutual interest. Nobody should want foreign fighters in their soil wreaking havoc. And it's hard for a part of a country to develop if there are people in that part of the country that are willing to kill innocent life to achieve an objective. And so we share short-term objectives with the Pakistani government. We also share the long-term objective, and that is -- that's freedom.

Q Thank you, very much, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm looking forward to the trip. And I really appreciate you coming.

Q Thank you, very much. I'm grateful and honored.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, sir.

Q Thank you, very much.

Instead of the pleasantries exchanged after that last A in the Q & A, I would have liked to have asked the following: Gee Whiz, Mr. President. Can you prove that "freedom defeats an ideology of hatred?" If so, please do so. And secondly, how do you know that spreading freedom is actually the outcome of what you and your "allies" are delivering in Iraq and the greater middle-east?

1 comment:

"They have a vision. And it's not a vision." Well, I mean, it's a vision, but it's not a vision, you see what I mean? It's a bad vision! Bad vision! I myself have excellent vision. But it's not pre-vision, it's just vision. And it's not television. But I do watch that from time to time when I need to get some news.